Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2026 - SA 375 D100

Labour and the Arts of Living (A) (4)

Class Number: 3268

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 5 – Apr 10, 2026: Wed, 9:30 a.m.–12:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Instructor:

    Kathleen Millar
    kmillar@sfu.ca
    Office Hours: Wed 1:00-2:00 PM, in-person at AQ 5062 or Zoom by appt

  • Prerequisites:

    SA 101 or SA 150 or SA 201W.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces sociocultural approaches to labour by examining the relationship between work and life in different parts of the world. Students will be given opportunities to reflect on their own working lives and aspirations for future employment. Topics include precarity, informality, unemployment, wageless life, work and citizenship, and post-work politics. Students who have taken SA 360 in Spring 2016 are not eligible to take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

Most of us, including as students, spend a significant portion of our waking hours at work. How do our working conditions and experiences shape the way we live our lives? And inversely, how do our life aspirations, commitments, values, and relationships impact the place of work in our everyday existence? These questions are especially important today, given the rise of precarious employment (and unemployment) throughout the world. Temp work can make it difficult to plan for the future. An unpaid internship can both tap into and complicate the mantra that “you should do what you love.” Prolonged unemployment can erode a worker’s identity or require that new bases for social belonging be found. As more informal kinds of work proliferate, there are also unintended or unforeseen consequences. New social movements arise around the identity of precarious labour. Other possibilities for fashioning work and life emerge.
This course examines these recent changes in the lived experience and meaning of work from a global perspective. We will explore the lives of former steel workers in deindustrialized Chicago, unemployed youth in Japan, call center operators in India, volunteer workers in Italy, cooperative leaders who took over factories in Buenos Aires, and Uber drivers in North America. These cases will introduce students to important concepts in the sociocultural study of work including precarity, informality, immaterial and affective labour, Fordism and post-Fordism, the work society, wageless life, social reproduction, worker subjectivity, and post-work politics. Finally and perhaps most importantly, students will be given opportunities to reflect on course material in relation to their own working lives and to their aspirations for future employment after graduation.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Make connections between work and other dimensions of life in their own personal experience and as their experience relates to the experiences of others in different social positions across the globe;
• Explain why and how jobs, workplaces, and other forms of labour have changed in recent years;
• Reflect on what those changes mean for their current and future working lives and how they can draw on anthropological insights as they navigate these changes;
• Express their own original ideas about the anthropology of work in clearly written, analytical essays;
• Provide and receive constructive feedback on writing.

Grading

  • Seminar participation 10%
  • Reading responses 10%
  • Midterm exam 30%
  • First essay 20%
  • Final essay 30%

NOTES:

Grading: Where a final exam is scheduled and the student does not write the exam or withdraws from the course before the deadline date, an N grade will be assigned. Unless otherwise specified on the course syllabus, all graded assignments for this course must be completed for a final grade other than N to be assigned. This means that you must write the midterm exam, submit both essays, and participate in at least half of the seminars and complete at least half of the reading responses. An N is considered as an F for the purposes of scholastic standing.

Grading System: The undergraduate course grading system is A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D, F, N (N standing indicates student did not complete course requirements). Intervals for the assignment of final letter grades based on course percentage grades are as follows:

A+ (95-100) | A (90-94) | A- (85-89) | B+ (80-84) | B (75-79) | B- (70-74) | C+ (65-69) | C (60-64) | C- (55-59) | D (50-54) | F (0-49) | N*
*N standing to indicate the student did not complete course requirements

Academic Honesty and Student Conduct Policies: The Department of Sociology & Anthropology follows SFU policy in relation to grading practices, grade appeals (Policy T20.01), and academic honesty and student conduct procedures (S10‐S10.05). Unless otherwise informed by your instructor in writing, in graded written assignments you must cite the sources you rely on and include a bibliography/list of references, following an instructor-approved citation style. It is the responsibility of students to inform themselves of the content of SFU policies available on the SFU website.

Centre for Accessible Learning: Students with hidden or visible disabilities who believe they may need classroom or exam accommodations are encouraged to register with the SFU Centre for Accessible Learning (1250 Maggie Benston Centre) as soon as possible to ensure that they are eligible and that approved accommodations and services are implemented in a timely fashion.

The Sociology and Anthropology Student Union, SASU, is a governing body of students who are engaged with the department and want to build the SA community. Get involved!  Follow Facebook and Instagram pages or visit our website.

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

All required reading will be made available through the SFU library and Canvas.

REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

At SFU, you are expected to act honestly and responsibly in all your academic work. Cheating, plagiarism, or any other form of academic dishonesty harms your own learning, undermines the efforts of your classmates who pursue their studies honestly, and goes against the core values of the university.

To learn more about the academic disciplinary process and relevant academic supports, visit: 


RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION

Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.